


Then You Probably Never Will

by hatshepslut



Series: Birds of a Feather [3]
Category: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel - Michael Scott
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Footnotes, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Spoiler Warning: Book 4 (The Necromancer), Spoiler Warning: Book 6 (The Enchantress)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26971969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatshepslut/pseuds/hatshepslut
Summary: "I think you already know why", Quetzalcoatl said defeatedly, his voice barely more than a hushed whisper.Aten blinked in confusion. "I do not", he replied truthfully, or at least he liked to believe he did."Then you probably never will."
Relationships: Aten/Quetzalcoatl (Nicholas Flamel)
Series: Birds of a Feather [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973989
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is part of an ungoing project which will be updated every now and then. The short stories are only loosely connected to each other, so you do not have to read them in any particular order.
> 
> A special thanks goes out to the members of the SINF Discord.
> 
> Ps. I will try to make it gayer next time, nekkuu.

** June 9th, 2007 AD, Teoiztac¹ **

"You cannot be serious!" 

Quetzalcoatl's face flushed red with anger. His plumed tail moved erratically behind his back, knocking yet another of his valuable curiosities from its pedestal, in this case a vase from the Ming dynasty, which had simply been unfortunate enough to be within its reach. Unsurprisingly, it shattered on the floor with a loud clank. Aten, who had watched the other Elder's tantrum unfold from a certain distance, breathed a silent sigh. 

That was already the sixth antique that has fallen victim to the Feathered Serpent's wrath in the course of the last fifteen minutes.

"I  _am_ serious, my friend", Aten finally responded, his voice as calm as ever. "In fact", he added, "I am convinced that it is for the better to leave Machiavelli and the Kid to themself for the moment. They are of more use to us alive than dead."

Promptly, another object was sent flying. The sound of stone breaking was almost deafening when a Roman marble bust hit the wall Aten was still leaning against, narrowly whizzing past the Dark Elder's head. He did not even blink. 

"You missed", the Sun Disk merely noted soberly.

"If I had wanted to hit you, I would have", Quetzalcoatl snapped back at him, but his face fell as soon as these words had left his mouth. A pang of regret flashed over his features. Muttering something under his breath, which could have been an apology, he quickly turned away from the other Elder again. 

Aten sighed.

After several millennia of companionship he knew the Feathered Serpent well enough to have noticed that the selfsame preferred flying into a rage to dealing with emotions like loss or failure. Despite that, the Sun Disk could not recall a time he had ever seen him quite  _this_ mad. It was a fact that the sons of the Archon Cotalicue were never as close as most twins were supposed to be, but he assumed that the death of his younger brother Xolotl did affect Quetzalcoatl more than he liked to admit. 

"Calm down", Aten uttered softly and pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning against to take a couple of steps towards the other Elder. He put two of his many hands² on the Feathered Serpent's shoulders, gently forcing him to sit down in a spare armchair. Quetzalcoatl opened his mouth to object, but immediately closed it again when a third hand reached out to him, its palm wide open. Expectantly, Aten raised his brows. The Feathered Serpent huffed in discontent, but reluctantly handed over the item he had been about to hurl across the room, a mosaic skull made from obsidian glass and azurite. 

"I know that you are mourning and there is no shame in doing such thing", the Sun Disk remarked while carefully putting the skull back on its pedestal, "but you are not thinking straight."

At the mention of the word "mourning" Quetzalcoatl suddenly went awfully quite. For a moment the Feathered Serpent did nothing but stare at the many broken pieces laying scattered in front of him on the floor in silence. 

"And  _you_ are growing soft", he eventually replied, his tone still somewhat bitter but not as sharp as beforehand, and swept a couple of shards out of his sight with a swift movement of his plumed tail. "Furthermore, I am not m... mourning", Quetzalcoatl wanted to continue, but his voice audibly cracked halfway through. Frustratedly, he hissed through clenched teeth, his jaw set, before finally insisting: "Grief is but for fools and children. You should know this by now." 

Even though the other Elder was evidently speaking to him, the Sun Disk was not quite certain whom he was trying to convince with this statement: Aten or himself.

Resting one elbow on his arm chair, the Feathered Serpent propped up his chin and sighed deeply. The weight of several millennia had visibly taken its toil on him. He looked exhausted, in a way almost aged. 

"You really are not the stuff that tyrants are made of, aren't you?", Quetzalcoatl noted and smiled sadly at him. Tilting his head, he threw a sidelong glance at Aten. "Sometimes I truly wonder what made you take sides with the Dark Elders in the first place", he added quietly.

"Power, obviously", the Sun Disk simply claimed, clasping one set of his many hands behind his back. Just for a second a few stray rays of sunlight broke through the ornamented lead glass window behind, illuminating the back of his head like a golden aureole. Quetzalcoatl could not help but unnoticeably smile to himself. 

Seeing him like this, the Feathered Serpent understood why people used to worship Aten as a god, how they fell for his coercions and manipulations. In fact, he did not doubt that if anybody else had been in his place right now, they would have swallowed every word the other Elder has just said without thinking twice.

A raspy laugh escaped Quetzalcoatl's mouth instead. The sound was more similar to nails scratching over glass than genuine laughter, but the Sun Disk would have recognize it anywhere. Visibly confused, he furrowed his brows at this reaction and crossed one pair of his arms in front of his chest. 

"Am I a joke to you, my friend?", Aten demanded, but sounded more amused than actually offended.

"With all due respect, Amenhotep³", Quetzalcoatl replied smugly, making the other Elder slightly grimace at the mention of his birth name, "I have difficulties believing you."

Now it was Aten's turn to chuckle softly. He did not admit it in the open, but the Feathered Sperpent made a good point there. "How come?", the Sun Disk wondered nonetheless and slowly leaned forward to the other Elder, pinning him down on the armchair by his wrists. He smiled at him, all teeth, but the smile did not quite reach his eyes. "Have I ever lied to you?", Aten kept inquiring .

Quetzalcoatl immediately tensed up in his seat, visibly uncomfortable with this intrusion on his personal space. His tail started twitching, restlessly tapping on the floor between them. "Never", he admittedly reluctantly, but ultimately had to correct himself, "Or at least until just now. You are an incredibly bad liar, Aten. Most people simply do not notice your tics, but I do."

The Sun Disk, who has always regarded himself as a great deceiver, frowned. Hesitating for a moment, he backed away from the other Elder again. It was self-evident that he was not pleased with this answer.

The truth was simple: Aten was uncertain what had ultimately swayed his opinion on humanity. He has changed much since the fall of Danu Talis and the days when he had yieled his power voluntarily to the Humani, yet not that much. He simply did acknowledge this fact. But more importantly, the thought of Quetzalcoatl changing his opinion of him, that his most trusted companion started perceiving him as weak-willed or even spineless, scared him in a way he could not possibly describe in words.

So, of course he preferred blatant lies to an inconvenient truth.

"Why did  _you_ join the Dark Elders then?", Aten asked quickly in an attempt to deflect their conversation from its previous topic, "Perhaps your reasoning is more convincing than mine." 

The wood creaked threateningly as the grip of the Feathered Serpent abruptly tightened around the arm rest of his chair, his knuckles turning all white. "Pardon?", he laughed uneasily, but quickly fell silent again. His tail nervously coiled around his feet. 

"I think you already know why", Quetzalcoatl said defeatedly, his voice barely more than a hushed whisper.

Aten blinked in confusion. "I do not", he replied truthfully, or at least he liked to believe he did.

"Then you probably never will."

The room was promptly filled with an uncomfortable silence. For a moment, which almost felt like an eternity but could not have been more than a minute or two, nobody dared to speak a word. "Do you want me to leave?", the Sun Disk asked weakly, interrupting the silence at long last. Hesitantly, the other Elder nodded in agreement. He could not even stand looking at him right now.

"Very well then", Aten muttered softly in reply. He wanted to say something, just to try fixing this situation, but did not know where to begin. He could not even guess how much damage has already been done. So he stayed quite. 

The last thing he heard as he closed the door behind him was the loud bang of a display case shattering on the ground, followed by a furious growl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¹ In Nahua mythology Teoiztac is the name of one of the Thirteen Heavens, in which Quetzalcoatl resides. I assume that this might be the most likely name for his shadowrealm in the SINF canon.
> 
> ² The Aten, the Kemetic sun disk, is commonly depicted as having several arms, mimicking the rays of the sun. This makes it likely that Aten received a similar appearance in the SINF canon after the Change.
> 
> ³ Amenhotep IV. was the birth name of the historical pharaoh Akhenaten (ca. 1373 - ca. 1336 BC), who is the same person as Aten in the SINF canon. Since Aten's father is also canonically called Amenhotep, this probably applies to his son as well.


	2. Chapter 2

** June 10th, 2007 AD, Teoiztac **

"I am most definitely not going inside! Have you seen him lately?"

"Neither will I. Do I look like I am suicidal?"

"But someone has to!"

The remaining servants of the Feathered Serpent have been discussing like this the whole morning. Their master had been ranging on in the atrium all night long, barely leaving a single of his collector's items in one piece. Even though he has not left his room in hours, they did not doubt that he would come for their heads next if they dared to come within his reach.

"You all know what this is going to boil down to", one of them, a former chieftain of the Chíhéne, uttered and pulled a well-worn box of matches out of his pockets. A collective groan filled the room.

Of course they did.

The box was passed around, everyone pulling a single match from it. Until it reached the immortal among them who used to be a Spanish conquistador². He instantly went pale when he realized that his match was the only one with a blue tip. Everybody else left out a breath they did not realize they were holding in the first place.

„Rest in pieces, buddy", another one, a gunslinger from Georgia³, said with a slight lisp and gave the other immortal a hearty pat on the back. Unsurprisingly, it did not help.

The Spaniard was literally shaking in his boots when he arrived in front of his master's chambers. In fact, he was so nervous that he almost dropped the parcel he was supposed to deliver on the way there. Taking one unsteady breath, he knocked at the door.

No reply.

For a moment the former conquistador considered simply leaving the box on the threshold and take to his heels, but ultimately had to admit to himself that this was no option. 

Silently cursing under his breath, the Spaniard counted to ten and ever so carefully pushed the door ajar. To his surprise, the room was shrouded in complete darkness. The blinds seemed to not have been opened all day long, but as soon as the first rays of light entered through the open door, a sharp hiss resounded from the other end of the chamber.

"What?", Quetzalcoatl snarled back at him from the shadows, his voice oddly muffled. The immortal flinched hard at the sudden noise and immediately pressed his eyes shut, waiting for his imminent demise. But nothing happened. Visibly confused, he dared to slowly open them again. 

His eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness and even when they did the Spaniard could not quite detect where his master's voice had come from. All he saw was an unusually large amount of blankets and pillows piling up on the bed. But suddenly the pile started shifting on its own and the disheveled head of the Feathered Serpent peeped out from underneath the covers.

"I said ' _What_ ?'", Quetzalcoatl repeated irritatedly, squinting at the light coming from the open door. For a moment, the immortal could not help but stare at this scene in complete silence. 

"A single word to the others and will feed you with your own tongue", the Feathered Serpent uttered in a low and menacing voice, "Understood?"

Choking hard, the former conquistador simply nodded. Without saying another word he put down the package, which has been tucked underneath his arm for the whole time, in front of the bed, his hands shaking badly. As soon as the parcel touched the floor he took off as fast as his legs could carry him. Quetzalcoatl groaned loudly and pressed a spare pillow into his face. 

He was really surrounded by idiots. And he probably he was the biggest one of them all. 

Carelessly shoving a few blankets and pillows to the ground, the Feathered Serpent forced himself to sit up for a moment and pushed the parcel closer to the edge of the bed with his plumed tail. It was significantly heavier than he expected it to be when he lifted it on his knees. Promptly he noticed that nobody had signed the package. Furrowing his brows in confusion, Quetzalcoatl tore off the parcel cord and clawed the rest of the packing paper and even some of the cardboard box open with his claws.

He paused for a moment when he realized what was inside.

It was a single canopic jar, well-upholstered in various layers of tissue paper. The jar had been crafted from solid alabaster and richly decorated with hieroglyphs filled in with gold leaf. The head of a jackal, which had been carefully carved into the lid, almost seemed to stare back at him, but the sealing wax had visibly started flaking off around the edges. Curiously, he lifted it up with a single finger to take a small glimpse inside. The Feathered Serpent could not help but snort with disappointment. 

Of course it had to be a heart⁴, inside a Kemetic vessel at that. Somebody was really not subtle about trying to make fun of him.

When he lifted the jar out of the package, even if it would only be to throw it against the next-best wall, a small piece of paper fell out of the box. With an annoyed huff he picked it up from the ground. The note said: "Try not to break this one. - A."

The scowl on Quetzalcoatl's face unnoticeably turnt into a small smirk.

"Bastard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¹ Baishan (ca. 1796 – 1857 AD), also called Cuchillo Negro [= Black Knife], was a chieftain of the Chíhéne, who fought and died during the Apache Wars (1849 - 1886 AD).
> 
> ² Hernan Cortés (1485 - 1547 AD) was a Spanish conquistador, who was responsible for the conquest of the Mexihcah city state of Tenochtitlan (1521 AD) and the fall of the Nahua Triple Alliance. According to his own account, the Mexihcah mistook him for the deity Quetzalcoatl and, thus, yielded their territory voluntarily to him. Even though his claims are unlikely to be true, I doubt that Quetzalcoatl would let even this pass unpunished in the SINF canon.
> 
> ³ John Henry Holliday (1851\2 - 1887 AD), commonly called Doc Holliday, was an American gunslinger and dentist from the US state of Georgia, who is best known for his association with the lawman Wyatt Earp (1848 - 1929 AD) and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1881 AD) in Tombstone, Arizona.
> 
> ⁴ In reality, no canopic jar existed for the heart, since the people of Kemet believed it to be the seat of the soul and, thus, did not remove it during the mummification. However, due to the fact that it also is the source of emotions like affection or love in the Kemetic belief system, just like it is in Western society, I chose to go with the heart anyway.


End file.
